Voluntary Environmental Programs: Assessing Their Effectiveness

Abstract

Voluntary environmental programs (VEPs) seek to improve the environment by encouraging, rather than mandating, businesses and other organizations to adopt environmentally protective measures. Since the 1990s, VEPs established by industry, government, and nongovernmental organizations have proliferated around the globe, raising the question of how effective these programs are in securing environmental protection, both on their own and in comparison to traditional mandatory regulations. This article reviews the emerging research literature on VEPs, describing the variation in their structures, providing a framework for assessing their impacts, and summarizing what is known about why organizations engage in voluntary environmental action and what effects these programs have on environmental quality.

The evolution of green leases: towards inter-organizational environmental governance

“…Focusing on environmental impacts, specifically, a body of scholarship identifies various factors involved in corporate governance of environmental problems. This work normally focuses on initiatives within firms or across firms of like-kind (e.g., Borck & Coglianese, 2009;Gouldson & Sullivan, 2014;Howard-Grenville, Nash, & Coglianese, 2008;Prakash & Potoski, 2006). This literature shows that an organization's willingness to engage in 'beyond compliance' environmental programmes is shaped by both external conditions (regulation, economic and social) and a range of internal, interacting factors, including management style, organizational culture and organizational structure.…”

“…This literature shows that an organization's willingness to engage in 'beyond compliance' environmental programmes is shaped by both external conditions (regulation, economic and social) and a range of internal, interacting factors, including management style, organizational culture and organizational structure. In their review of the VEP literature, Borck and Coglianese (2009) note three types of businesses are likely to participate in VEPs: (1) larger businesses, as they have greater resources to participate and may benefit most from recognition, (2) businesses with internal cultures supportive of environmentally friendly behaviour, and (3) businesses that face (or are likely to face) stricter government regulations.…”

“…Despite the potential strength of private-private contracts (Vandenbergh, 2005) and the existing role of leases as a 'local law' between two parties, the relatively low level of ambition and enforceability of agreed green leases suggests they have may have more symbolic value than measurable material impact. As a tool for interorganizational governance, green leases as currently configured have much in common with VEPs, whose impacts are also difficult to quantify (Borck & Coglianese, 2009). However, interviews with early adopters of green leases (Cases 2 and 3) suggest they facilitate useful conversations about cooperation between tenant and landlord on environmental matters.…”

Why Do Corporate Actors Engage in Pro-Social Behavior? A Bourdieusian Perspective on Corporate Social Responsibility

“…Many empirical studies support an instrumental perspective by showing that pro-social behavior may favor business prospects in many respects (e.g., Borck and Coglianese, 2009;Christmann, 2000;Stites and Michael, 2011). However, the "virtuous circle" (Porter and Kramer, 2002) which assumes economic profit and the social good as mutually reinforcing, does not grasp the whole story.…”

Attributing Benefits to Voluntary Programs in EPA’s Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery: Challenges and Options

“… PVPs that provide signaling features to the market (e.g., suppliers and customers) address information imbalances, or asymmetries, associated with complex products and processes; specifically, incomplete information can result in decisions that create negative environmental impacts, or externalities (see Darnall and Carmin 2005;Borck and Coglianese 2009).…”